There is an old saying, that if Democrats were to propose burning down the White House Republicans would counter with a plan that would burn it down “better” for half the price, though it would take half again as long to accomplish. I have been reminded of this saying repeatedly over the past several weeks as various “mainstream” Republicans, including Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, journalist William Kristol, and former Bush adviser James Pinkerton, among others, have floated “alternatives” to the Affordable Care Act. As so often in the past, “mainstream” Republicans, fearing that a liberal program might genuinely fail, are rushing to fix it by replacing it with a more cautious version of the same program.

The details frankly are not worth pursuing. Suffice it to say that “mainstream” Republicans prefer to manipulate the tax code rather than make their subsidies in the open. But Republican “alternatives” all rest on the mistaken notion that there is some set of key needs they can address with a program that is less expensive, intrusive, and unwieldy than the Affordable Care Act. I say “mistaken” because all these proposals by their very nature are formed in the logic of social democracy. The people have a need. It is not being met as well as we would like. So the government must devise a program to better meet that need.

It should be self-evident to everyone outside the “mainstream” of Republicanism that such logic inevitably will produce, on an ad-hoc basis, the very government-run system they claim to be avoiding. Like the Affordable Care Act itself, “mainstream” systems will have significant “gaps” and “imperfections” created by the failure to impose a seamless administrative structure. The federal government will, of course, be happy to remedy such problems through additional, more systemic, reforms. The result inevitably will be a nightmare, but it will be a government-run nightmare, and the government will be in charge of reforming it forever after.

Sadly, this point—and people’s control of their own healthcare decisions—was lost when it became established dogma that “insurance” must be universal. Insurance is merely a means of pooling risks of calamity. I buy life insurance to provide support for my family in case of my unexpected demise. The insurance company pools money from people like me, invests it, and pays out portions when needed—keeping part of the whole for administrative overhead and profit. The further we get from the one-time calamity scenario, the higher the administrative overhead as we move from insurance toward “provision of services.” There may be a continuum between life insurance and comprehensive healthcare, but it is a very steep continuum, and its slope is quite slippery.

This administration’s attempts to bully and bamboozle healthy young adults into buying into the Affordable Care Act is just more proof that the system is less about insurance than it is about finding a way to subsidize a government program to provide healthcare services. So why do mainstream (they would prefer, of course, to be termed “responsible”) Republicans want to have a somewhat smaller and more efficient version of the same thing? Because they are afraid of looking like they do not care about poor people. And, of course, today the only way to appear to care about poor people is to offer them a government plan.

America was not always this way. There was a time when caring for those less fortunate than oneself meant dipping into one’s own pocket, instead of pretending government programs do not get their funding by reaching into other people’s pockets. In fact, one of the central factors producing our current healthcare crisis has been the death of the true charitable hospital. Another factor, of course, has been our tax system’s crude incentives, which have pushed employers into the business of providing health benefits instead of leaving them to provide decent pay and leaving employees to purchase healthcare plans on the open market. And a number of factors have stopped almost all Americans from banding together with other people (as Catholics, or Jews, or machinists, or members of various other groups, as once was the norm) to purchase healthcare services.

The assumption today is, of course, that any return to such a system of free markets, freedom of association, and the freedom to provide charitable services (something our tax, insurance, and tort law currently renders essentially impossible) is not possible. One thing is for certain, it will never be possible so long as the Republican “mainstream” continues to think like a group of social democrats.

Books on the topic of this essay may be found in The Imaginative Conservative Bookstore.

The whole article is based on a false premise. There is no Republican plan to offer mandatory insurance. There are Republican plans to offer greater opportunity for those who would like to buy insurance but are having difficulty due to things like pre-existing conditions. In fact, one of the most important alternatives merely allows associated individuals to more easily band together to create economies of scale that would lower premiums. Surely, this cannot be seem as being anti-free market?

Ah, but you must understand, the Establishment Republicans are committed neither to “conservative” nor “liberal” (social-democracy) principles or causes.

They, the politicians, are committed only to getting re-elected.

One cannot become re-elected without money.

The best money comes from corporate America.

Corporate America is social-democratic in the same way as Bismarck — because it is good for business.

The Tea Party politicians are not (yet) part of this dynamic, being ideologically driven. (And, for all I excoriate their nihilistic approach to governance, I must applaud their virtue of — virtue.)

To underscore this point, “Business Republicans”, like neocons, care only for their own agenda, and not a fig for the Republic. The Leftie’s arguments against money in politics have relevance, but their solutions, like the populism that gave us direct primaries (and a host of unintended consequences), will only exacerbate the problem.

Frankly, I do not have a solution, save to point out the obvious, that the “leftist” agenda of both parties is driven, ultimately, by Wall Street, which is working for a totally atomized population of brainless hedonistic consumers.

Here is an alternative to Obamacare. How about an Income Tax Credit for Americans to purchase health insurance. If you are an Indigent American Citizen, then a limited income tax credit for a basic plan will be provided. You chose your doctor, your insurance provider and No Mandates! If you don’t like your doctor or insurance provider then you can make the decision to change them. Tweak the pre-existing condition requirements so insurance providers must accept all purchasers without a grace period. Illegal immigrants don’t qualify and Never should qualify for Any Subsidy from the government short of deportation. This would require Washington to actually work with less money to waste and try to buy votes.

Could it be that one outfit controls both parties, and it has an agenda to effectively establish some for of socialism (probably and preferably Communism – after the Fabians always favored them in their actions)? “Some evidence,” as a writer in the 19 century put it, “is so circumstantial as when one finds fish in his milk.” After all, we have the publications of Carroll Quigley and Bella Dodd giving an inside look that substantiates the suspicions of so many about a conspiracy, a big and open conspiracy, the latter term open conspiracy coming from a book with that title by H.G. Wells, a member of the first Fabian group. Tsk!

Weekly Newsletter

The conservative is concerned, first of all, with the regeneration of the spirit and character—with the perennial problem of the inner order of the soul, the restoration of the ethical understanding, and the religious sanction upon which any life worth living is founded. This is conservatism at its highest. - Russell Kirk